Even this cover photo is awkward and uncomfortable.

According to Zoomin.TV, we should probably make sure we play these weird games alone and keep it a secret from our friends. No one here is judging anyone for their guilty pleasures or anything, but weird and ridiculous boob physics are gonna get pretty awkward. Guaranteed.

Never bet on Duke.

If the overwhelmingly negative critical reception of Duke Nukem Forever wasn't punishment enough for developer Gearbox Software, they are now being taken to court over the game. 3D Realms was the first company to work on DNF in the game's sordid 14-year development cycle. During the development of DNF, in addition to not making a remotely good game, Gearbox did not pay 3D Realms the over $2 million in royalties that they had agreed to upon picking up the license. Naturally, 3DR sued them in response.

Stanley Kubrik's excellent horror film The Shining has been unnerving audiences for over two decades. Between command performances by Jack Nicholson and the entire cast, some strong source material from Stephen King, and brilliant direction, it has maintained a reputation as a truly horrifying movie. But one key aspect of the film is the fact that most of the sets for the Overlook Hotel, the central location for the film, are spatially impossible.
This has long been known, but recently highlighted by Rob Ager, who created two YouTube videos on the subject. He says that the impossible nature of the hotel was first brought to his attention by an acquaintance who attempted to create an Overlook Hotel map for the original Duke Nukem. This led Ager to conduct an exhaustive study of the film, and visit the Kubrik archives in London to see the original plans for the sets. Ager confirmed that the hotel is packed with impossible windows, doors that lead to nowhere, and whole rooms that cannot exist inside the hotel.
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We knew it was happening. When Gearbox Softwaresurprisingly relaunched the development of the fabled Duke Nukem Forever, we knew one day it would finally launch. And yet, here we are, presented with the news that the King's return has gone gold and will be released to the public next month, and it still seems like a weird alternate reality, or at least regular reality where on launch day Gearbox declares, "Just kidding."

"It's just a game releasing," you might say. "Duke is offensive and childish," someone else who isn't fond of the completely satirical take on extreme masculinity might offer. "It's just a first-person shooter," someone too young to remember the impact on gaming the original Duke Nukem 3D had. Duke Nukem Forever going gold matters for two reasons. The first reason being that the game has been the joke of the gaming industry for the past fourteen years. That's 1997. This game has been in development since 1997. It has a development history Wikipedia page that is longer than its regular Wikipedia page. Fourteen years of development, and the game finally made it. It should be some kind of milestone if it weren't so ridiculous. Secondly, back in the early days of gaming, when pixelated first-person shooters reigned supreme, Duke was one of the first games to offer gamers a coherent, fun, online gaming experience, as well as one of the first user-friendly level builders, which allowed users to pump out well-made custom maps with minimal effort. However one may feel about Duke, from a historical gaming standpoint, Duke matters, and after fourteen years of development hell, Duke Nukem Forever is no longer vaporware.

If you felt physical discomfort and deep-seated anxiety when 2K Games and Gearbox announced an actual release date for Duke Nukem Forever, never fear. In time-honored tradition, the game has been delayed again by about a month. It will now be released on June 14th in the U.S. and June 10th internationally.
It is tempting and topical to muse that this has something to do with the controversy over the butt-slapping multiplayer mode, but that seemed like kind of a deliberate troll to begin with; really, Duke Nukem Forever is probably being delayed again because it is Duke Nukem Forever.
Below, Gearbox Software president Randy Pitchford explains and feels the pain:

The day of reckoning is upon us, friends. Pilots should be wary of airborne swine; those working in the deepest parts of the Earth may notice a chill. Now would be a good time to put money on the Detroit Lions; all those mass animal die-offs should have told us something.
Duke Nukem Forever has an official release date.
GameInformer is reporting that May 3rd, 2011 is the magical day (May 6 if you live outside the U.S.) when Duke strolls out of the annals of video game history and reclaims his throne. The date has been confirmed by both Randy Pitchford, Gearbox Software president, and Christoph Hartmann, at 2k. Up until this point Duke Nukem Forever has been famous as one of the greatest pieces of vaporware in history, having been in "development" since 1997. But after its appearance at PAX this past September, and a confirmed release date, that may very well change. There's even a trailer.
Now, some may see this as a mistake. By never releasing the game, it would be legendary. With its release, it will have to face the scrutiny of an audience that has changed a lot in the past 12-odd years. We'll see if its up to the challenge and if, like a fine wine, Duke Nukem has become finely distilled awesome or a pathetic cash-in.
A somewhat NSFW trailer is after the cut.

A bizarre but telling confluence of events has lead to the conclusion that 2k Games (subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive, the company that famously sued the creators of Duke Nukem, 3D Realms, for not making Duke Nukem Forever) will be showing Duke Nukem Forever in some capacity today at the Penny Arcade Expo.
The Duke Nukem sequel saga is the games industry's most famous example of vaporware, a game that languishes in development with great anticipation until finally fading into the ether for any of various reasons.
In the case of Duke Nukem Forever, fans have been waiting for thirteen years.
But we mentioned a bizarre confluence of events?
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A video of what purports to be a gameplay video for Duke Nukem Forever has leaked online.

Duke Nukem Forever has been in development for more than a decade (see the excellent Wired story on its difficult travails), and when Steve Jobs recently encountered a genie, he wished for Duke Nukem Forever instead of a so-called "iPad," so: this could be big news to patient, patient gamers everywhere.